Monday, July 16, 2012

Most people don’t connect the flying furry insect to its pivotal
role in food production. No bees, no honey, no beeswax, but no fruits and
vegetables. “Vanishing of the Bees” (2009) is an in depth look at the phenomena
of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a baffling condition that has been affecting
bees worldwide for decades. Beekeepers have been noticing that their bee stocks
have been literally disappearing without a trace: from a hive of thousands,
they find only a few scattered corpses and even fewer remaining living bees.
Two important points: first, scientists actually have discredited the notion
that cell phones cause CCD (a notion that the media still seems to believe is
true). Secondly, and most importantly, scientists now suspect (but cannot
definitively prove) that systemic pesticides are a more likely cause of CCD.
Have you heard of systemic pesticides?…Because in all my travels of environmental
issues, this is the first instance where I learned of them… Unlike the
“traditional” pesticides that are sprayed or otherwise applied directly to the
grown plant (think crop dusters), systemic pesticides are applied to the seed
and thus the plant repels pests from the inside out. The pesticide becomes part
of the plant. With cutesy names like “Gaucho” and “Poncho” (manufactured by
Bayer) these pesticides, while regulated by the EPA, are not tested by the EPA,
which only requires the manufacturer to prove safety on their own. Currently there
are no long-term studies on what the cumulative effects of these systemic
pesticides.

Let that sink in. Most likely, every single day we are ingesting
food that has been grown through these pesticides, with no warning labels or
legal responsibility of the manufacturer to disclose what has been applied.
Even if systemic pesticides do not cause instant death or symptoms, why do we
blindly accept that there are no long term effects? If bee deaths continue,
what will the future hold for food production?